why art?
The arts can help ground and relax us, help us become reflexive, and help with emotional expression. By helping clients explore how their creative processes are linked to their feelings and perceptions, we help them develop a greater understanding of themselves.
Activities such as family trees and life maps illustrating significant events (such as changes of house or school) help us initially assess the child. Everything a client creates can be analysed and made use of - it can be incredibly interesting material. Very simply, a self-portrait, for example, could help us understand how one feels about themselves or how others see them. Drawings & paintings can help tell our story, and our fears & frustrations and reveal a great deal about our internal world.
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Engaging with the arts can be particularly beneficial for processing complex and traumatic experiences and enables greater understanding and processing of emotions. Art can also have a healing effect unto itself. Through, for example, the process of focusing attention, using the form to find meaning through metaphor, and developing imagination.